Hunslet and Riverside Ward Councillors have welcomed the restart of community action mornings on the large Housing Leeds estate off of Church Street in Hunslet – led by Hunslet Tenants and Residents Association (Hunslet TARA).
Following the easing of restrictions, a combination of litter picking and community gardening on the estate restarted weekly on a Tuesday for litter picking and Friday for gardening. These action mornings are supported by a number of local residents and other volunteers.
Stewart Walton, Chair of Hunslet TARA said:
“It is good to be able to be back out and doing these small litter picks and gardening events. It might not seem much – but the extra effort on top of the work done by the Council means the estate is slowly returning to being to be litter free again and the edible planters are looking much nicer – we’ve even start to remove moss and weeds on some of the footpaths!”
In recent weeks the action mornings have helped clear weeds from the herb garden planters on the Hemingways, plant thousands of bulbs on the community green with the help of young people from the Involve Centre and started to clear litter from within the inner streets of the estate.
Cllr Paul Wray, who has attended many of these action mornings, congratulated the local community spirit:
“Cllr Elizabeth Nash, Mohammed Iqbal and I really appricate this volunteer work. Before the lockdowns, these action mornings were having a really positive impact – so it is great to see them up and running again. After about a month of these – you can really see the difference they’ve made and it is getting harder to find litter anywhere other than on the main walkways though the estate.”
The action mornings are every Tuesday for litter picking and Friday for gardening. Both start at 10am and volunteer are asked to meet at the Church of the Nazarene main entrance which faces Grove Road. No equipment is needed. To find out more about Hunslet Tenants and Residents Association, visits www.facebook.com/HunsletTARA or email hunslettara@yahoo.com
This month’s meeting of Hunslet TARA will take place online on Wednesday 2 June at 6:30pm. Full details of how to login to the meeting are on the group’s Facebook page. The group’s Annual General Meeting will be in person at the Church of the Nazarene, Grove Road on Wednesday 30th June at 6:30pm.